


Crash Course in Interplanetary Diplomacy

by shinealightonme



Category: Community, Warehouse 13
Genre: Case Fic, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2011-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>A long time ago (well, the other week), at a college far, far away (unless you're from Colorado, then it's probably not that far, unless maybe there's traffic)</i> – The new girl at Greendale is an alien, the government's hot on her trail, and two brave heroes stand between Earth and the annihilation of Earth.  Or so Troy thinks.  The truth is a little weirder than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crash Course in Interplanetary Diplomacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ozmissage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozmissage/gifts).



> Written for ozmissage for xover_exchange at [LJ](http://xover-exchange.livejournal.com/70104.html).

**Monday**

Troy wasn't really sure how he wound up in Astronomy.

Okay, he knew how he got there (girls love that "what's your sign" stuff), but he wasn't sure why he stayed.

Partly he felt bad for the professor. (The guy put his head on his desk and started weeping softly when Troy asked whether December was still Sagittarius, because didn't all the signs change?) And obviously Abed had signed up for the class with him, and they'd have to find something else they could both get into if they left this one. And there was the part where it was pretty cool to watch movies about stars, and black holes, and nebulas, especially when Troy got to pretend to be Reggie and Abed was Inspector Spacetime.

But sometimes it really didn't seem like all that was enough to justify –

"Jesus, it is _cold_ out here!"

Midnight labs outdoors every week.

Troy had come prepared this time. One thermos of hot special drink, a second thermos of soup, and a big bag of pop rocks (the popping made his mouth feel warm). He'd bundled up layer upon layer, too, but his nose was freezing and they didn't make gloves for noses (which would be a brilliant idea and he'd have to start working on that. It would probably make a ton of money). And as if the cold wasn't bad enough, the meet-up spot was miles away from campus, outside city limits, on the edge of a forest, like something at the beginning of a horror movie (it would give Troy the chills if the weather weren't already giving him the colds).

He made his way through the assembled students, making sure that Professor Baker saw he was there, and finally found Abed standing, looking straight up at the sky through a long cardboard tube.

"So what are we looking for today?"

Abed held up a list of constellations without looking away from the sky. "We need to identify these in the sky, chart the phase of the moon, and note any unusual phenomenon."

"Man, this is such a waste of time," Troy scuffed at the ground with his foot. "We could see all this looking at a planetarium. Or a sky-atlas. Or something else where it's warm."

Abed donned a pair of fuzzy green earmuffs. "We could see the constellations and the phases of the moon. But not unusual phenomenon."

Troy drank some special drink and waited for Leonard to pass. "What sort of phenomenon do you think we'll see?"

"Alien spaceships, debris falling to earth, an interdimensional portal opening, flux in the fabric of space time...maybe some satellites."

"Cool."

They stood waiting for a long time. Students took turns using the professor's telescope, though clouds started to roll in and there wasn't much of a view of anything.

Troy was just starting to feel sleepy and think about going home when he heard murmurs and gasps from around him. Abed's bony elbow poked him in the side.

"I'm awake, Mom."

"Look at that."

"Look at what?"

But as he asked it, Troy realized what Abed must have been referring to. A bright orange light was passing through the night sky, visible even through the cloud cover.

"What's that?"

"UFO?"

"Possibly. It's approaching the earth pretty quickly."

"Maybe it's damaged."

"It's heading right for us!"

"Duck!"

Most of the class dropped to the ground and covered their heads. Leonard, with a lot of grumbling, was only able to manage a half-sit, half-lean against a parked car, pulling out a flask and drinking something that didn't smell much at all like special drink.

Abed and Troy stayed upright, staring straight at the object, as it grew larger and larger...and then disappeared.

-

**Tuesday**

Troy was a little bummed that they hadn't met any aliens last night. For a moment he had thought they were going to make first contact, or possibly get probed, or maybe have to fight a whole fleet and destroy the mother ship to defend planet Earth. Instead, it was just another morning of waking up and going to school.

"There's no such thing as aliens, Troy," Annie said, in that little voice that just like because she knew how to do long division and get juice stains out or the carpet, she knew everything. "You probably just saw a meteor. They usually burn up in the atmosphere before they reach earth."

"But there wasn't a meteor shower scheduled for last night," Britta argued. "And as a matter of fact, unexplained astronomical phenomena like this happen all the time, but the _Man_ doesn't want you to know about it – "

Right on schedule, a groan from the whole group cut Britta off.

"I think it sounds like a fun night," Shirley said. "Maybe God was sending one of his angels – "

Louder groans.

"It sounds like you two were conned into putting several extra hours of work into a class for the same number of units as any other class." Jeff smirked. "Now, if you'd signed up for Statistics of Poker with me, none of this would have happened.

"Right," Troy said. "And how much are you in debt to Pierce, again?"

Jeff flushed. "That's not the –

"$1,037, a bottle of Riesling, and two promises to hang out for 'guy time,' the activity and timing of which are to be chosen by Pierce at a future date," Abed recited on cue.

"He cheats!"

"Thanks for that, Abed," Pierce said. "Honestly, Jeff has lost so much and embarrassed himself so much, I can hardly keep track of it myself. It's exhausting."

"It's _senility_."

Abed pointed first at Pierce, then at Jeff. "If he's senile, how does he keep beating you?"

Jeff started grabbing his stuff. "Don't you all have class right now?"

-

Troy didn't notice the new girl in Astronomy until Abed pointed her out. She was slouched down in the second row, twirling a pen through her red hair, kicking her feet up on the chair in front of her, and paying zero attention to the professor. In other words, she looked like a typical Greendale student.

"She wasn't here before," Abed said.

"It's only the second week. Maybe she had to drop something else."

"Hm." Abed tilted his head, like he was thinking about something and couldn't fit the pieces together, so he had to shift them around in his mind. "I've never seen her before. She's not a Greendale student."

Troy felt his heart start to beat a little faster at the way Abed said that – like there was some big mystery going on, instead of just a new slacker enrolling. Still, he had to be sure. "So maybe she's new."

"Maybe." Abed looked at him. "Or maybe this has something to do with the UFO from last night."

"You think?"

"Almost positive. A strange, unexplained light in the night sky...the next day, a stranger shows up with no identity, an individualistic cowboy attitude, no memory of her past – "

"No memory?"

"I'm extrapolating a little. But it's way too much convenient to be just a coincidence."

"What do you think we should do?"

"All we can do for now is observe. If she is connected to the aliens somehow, we don't want them to know that we're onto them. They could get upset."

"If they get upset, does that mean butt-stuff?"

"Butt-stuff, and not in the fun way."

"Got it." Troy slouched down in his own chair, avoiding the scrutiny of the girl who hadn't, so far as he knew, even looked at him once. Just in case. He wished he had something he could put on to look more nonchalant.

Abed, as though reading his mind, pulled out two pairs of mirrored sunglasses. Troy put his on and sat there through the rest of class, barely hearing anything as the professor dodged questions from the class about what they had seen last night.

"He's way out of his league," Abed whispered at one point. "He'll be lucky if the CIA doesn't come knocking on his door in the next day or two."

Abed said that in a little of a Jeff Goldblum voice. Which would make Troy Will Smith. He was cool with that, as long as he didn't have to drag an alien through the desert. Which he probably wouldn't have to, since the nearest desert to Greendale was like a thousand miles away. Unless this turned into an international adventure, like if there was an alien fugitive and they had to track it down though strange places that were really all just Vancouver dressed up funny. Or maybe the alien would just escape to Vancouver, like if their spaceships were powered by maple syrup –

At this point Abed elbowed him again. Troy had gotten so tied up in thinking about Canadian aliens that he'd totally lost track of the mission. Couldn't let that happen again. Especially since class was over, and the alien was on the move.

She grabbed her messenger bag from the ground (didn't have any notebooks or textbooks to collect; seemed like she hadn't done a very good job of studying their culture before trying to immerse herself in it. Or, well, this _was_ Greendale, so actually that was pretty smart) and turned to walk to the door. She caught sight of them looking at her and she frowned.

Damn! How had she seen past their nonchalant glasses? No time to panic. Troy had to diffuse the situation, chase any doubts about them out of her mind, and make it clear that they were just a couple of regular students, with no thoughts of aliens or UFOs or maple syrup in their mind.

He stood and, without smiling, looking a foot to the left of her, said, "Howdy, miss."

"Do you mind?" the girl pointed at him, and Troy almost recoiled. There was no way of knowing what the alien could do with her finger. Maybe she could shoot lasers from it! Man, aliens had all the best superpowers. He wanted laser fingers.

"Sorry, miss, what's that?"

"You're in my way."

"So you're just going to annihilate me?"

The girl frowned. "No, I'm going to walk around you, if you won't move six inches to the left."

"Oh. Right." The glasses limited his range of vision a little bit. Troy scooted the desired inches and held his arm out, pointing the way. "After you."

The alien looked like she wasn't sure she wanted to walk that way any more. Clearly, she knew he suspected her. But after a moment, she slipped past. Troy thought he heard her mutter something.

"Good work, Agent T." Apparently Abed was doing Men in Black instead of Independence Day. Which meant Troy still got to be Will Smith, so that was okay. "We have confirmation."

"Why do you say that?"

"As the alien was passing, she said something about 'local life forms'. Clearly she's here on a mission to study us."

"And learn our weaknesses?"

Abed frowned. "I'm not sure. She didn't sound hostile."

"Maybe her species is all females, and they need earth men to help them procreate their species."

"Possible, though they might be looking into cloning alternatives or good old-fashioned body snatching. We're going to have to get closer to her, to figure out what she's after."

"How do we do that? We don't know where she's gone, or who she is."

Abed stared in silence for the appropriate amount of time to build dramatic tension. "I have a feeling we'll see her again."

-

It was Troy's turn to make dinner. When they first moved in together, Troy and Abed just kind of let things like dinner and shopping for groceries and taking the trash out happen whenever they would, but now that Annie had joined the apartment, they had all kinds of schedules for things.

It was kind of nice not having take-out for every meal, or having to chew on ice cubes because that was the closest thing to food in the kitchen. And while Troy wasn't allowed to make whatever he wanted when it was his turn to cook (Pringles pudding was approved for dessert and midnight snacks, but not as a main course), it did mean he could make animal-shaped macaroni if he felt like it.

Except today, he was sort of distracted, and ended up not quite appreciating the orange, gooey menagerie in front of him as much as he might have normally.

"Did you guys have a good day at school?" Annie asked. She was wearing a little cardigan. Troy reminded himself that she was actually younger than him, and not his mom at all, but subconsciously he felt his posture straighten up a little at the way she said it.

"Yeah, me and Troy met someone."

"Really? Someone cute?" Annie asked, in what she clearly thought was a sly way. Troy could teach her a think or two about being sneaky.

"She was okay," Troy answered.

Annie looked a little put out that it was a girl. But just for a second. (Or two.) "What's her name?"

"We don't know."

"Oh, well, where'd you meet her?"

Troy and Abed looked at each other, wordlessly debating how much to tell Annie about the situation. After all, Troy reasoned, you didn't keep secrets from your friends lightly. Plus, Annie was smart; she could help them figure out what the aliens were after. But without knowing more, they couldn't be sure that they wouldn't just be putting her in danger by telling her about it.

Annie cleared her throat. Troy jumped, and figured he and Abed had maybe been staring a little longer than they meant to. "I'm guessing this was after lunch, since that's the last time I saw you," she said, and pulled a little day planner out of her purse. "And today, the class you had after lunch was...Astronomy."

"You have all our classes in there?" Troy leaned over to take a closer look, and Annie slammed the planner shut in his face.

"Of course! What if there was an emergency and I had to be able to locate you?"

"Can I see it?"

"No!"

"But...it's _my_ schedule."

"So then why do you need to see it?"

Annie and Troy stared at each other for a long moment.

"She was in our Astronomy class," Abed said suddenly. "I've never seen her around campus before."

"Well, what does she look like? Can you describe her?"

"Annie, you don't need to worry," Troy said. "She's totally human."

"Um...okay."

"Oy-tray," Abed whispered in their secret language. "Ix-nay on the uman-hay."

"You guys know that I speak Pig Latin, right?"

"Am-scray!"

Abed and Troy jumped up from the table and made a break for the front door.

Annie's voice followed them. "Abed, it's your turn to do the dishes!"

-

**Wednesday**

Abed did the dishes. Eventually.

-

**Thursday**

Troy thought maybe Annie was going to ask them more about the alien, but around the apartment she was super absorbed in something, to the point of just waving at them when they asked her questions, and at school, they barely saw her except during study sessions, when she remained resolutely focused on the subject at hand and left as soon as possible.

Troy and Abed kept an eye on the alien during Astronomy, but after two more classes, they hadn't seen her try to eat anyone or use super-advanced technology or speak in an undecipherable language or sprout extra limbs – or really do anything except slouch, in the same seat, and stare off into space. If Troy didn't know any better, she'd just have looked like any other Greendale student.

They debated whether they should try to follow her back to her mother ship, but Abed raised a point Troy hadn't thought of:

"What if she's exerting mind-control over Annie?"

"What do you mean?"

"Annie's been preoccupied the last couple days. Ever since the UFO crashed on Earth."

"Yeah, but Annie's always preoccupied. She's probably just studying for a test or planning a school-wide rally or rescuing puppies."

"Annie doesn't have any tests," Abed said, and Troy didn't doubt him. Annie kept track of everyone's schedules in her planner, but Abed just _knew_ these things, without having to look them up. If Troy didn't know Abed was in his corner, always, he would find it kind of scary. "And if she was planning something for the school, she would already have tried to get everyone to help out with it."

Troy thought about the anti-drug play, and the STD fair, and the Model UN, (and the candlelight vigil protest, and the Dia de los Muertos party, and, and, and), and thought Abed was probably right. "So what do we do?"

"The alien's probably using her to get to us. So far we haven't done anything too suspicious; maybe she'll get bored and let Annie go."

"And if she doesn't?"

Abed looked appropriately grim. He hadn't taken the sunglasses off in two days, not even to sleep. Troy checked. "Then we'll deal with that when it happens."

-

**Friday**

Annie was late for their study group meeting. No one else had seemed to notice (they were all gossiping about the double-or-nothing sudden death poker match that Jeff had challenged Pierce too, and whether or not you could even have "sudden death" poker, and if the whole thing should be televised like celebrity poker tournaments, and whether Pierce was lying when he said he had celebrities friends that he could get to come play with them to raise money for charity, and what charities should they donate for anyway).

Troy tried not to look at Abed. He already knew they were thinking the same thing. No, there wasn't sudden death poker, but there totally should be. Also, that the alien must have gotten to Annie. There was no way she'd be late to a study session; she was the only one who ever even did any studying, anyway.

He was starting to wish they had followed the alien, or at least figured out where she went when she wasn't in class, or at least what her name was, when Annie came striding into the library, beaming from ear to ear and totally not in need of a heroic rescue. Troy tried not to be disappointed.

"Hello, everyone!" Annie turned back to the woman who was following her. "Myka, these are my friends Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy, Pierce, and Shirley. Guys, this is Myka Bering."

Everyone in the group said some variation on "hello," the most welcoming probably being Shirley's "it's so nice to meet you," and the creepiest being a toss up between Jeff's "Hel _lo_ " and Pierce's "Nice legs."

"Hi," Myka said, smiling with limited sincerity. "I've heard a lot about you guys."

"Are you a student here?" Shirley asked, as Annie took her usual seat and guided Myka into the empty spot next to Jeff.

"No, I'm just visiting."

At "visit," Abed and Troy looked at each other quickly, but turned back to Myka, in case she noticed. She hadn't.

"Myka is a Secret Service officer," Annie said proudly, and talked quickly and loudly to cover up whatever rebellious mutterings Britta had at that point. "Freshman year of high school, the students in Troy's and my class were partnered with successful professionals who could give us advice and inspiration to keep working hard. Myka's told me all about being in a high-stress environment, and working as a woman in a man's field, and all kinds of things."

"Hey, I remember that project," Troy said, for a moment not thinking about aliens. "I got matched with some guy at a bank. You just had to write them one letter and turn it in to the teacher."

"That was the _minimum_ requirement, Troy," Annie said, a little disapprovingly. "But Myka's been like a mentor to me. She's part of the reason I am where I am today."

"Where you are, as in Greendale? Sounds like she really screwed you over," Jeff muttered.

"Jeff!" Annie turned her patented hurt eyes at him. "Myka's my friend, and she's here to help us out with a project I've been working on."

"Annie had a great idea to organize a career fair here at the school for law enforcement," Myka said, with only a short dirty glare at Jeff. "She's spent a lot of time finding officers to commit to coming, when she told me about it I thought it sounded like a great opportunity, and maybe I could provide a different perspective."

"A different perspective on how the fascist pigs in the capitol are holding our civil liberties hostage in their war against anyone who disagrees with them?" Britta asked smugly.

Myka leaned forward. "Mostly I thought I could explain the brilliant mind control techniques we've developed in recent years, but clearly they haven't worked on you. Give me your number, and I'll arrange for some agents to rough you up, maybe do an illegal search on your place."

Troy decided he liked Annie's friend, and probably she wasn't an alien. Would an alien using mind control on someone make a joke about mind control? Pssh.

-

Abed was still lost in thought as they headed to Astronomy, and Troy decided it was time to find out why.

"This Myka dropping by all of a sudden," Abed told him. "I don't like it. It's too convenient."

"She seems pretty human to me," Troy said.

"Me too. But she could still be connected to it all. Especially since she's a Secret Service agent."

"You think she's tracking the alien, too?" Troy dropped his voice to a whisper. "I thought the CIA handled that kind of thing!"

"Good point," Abed thought for a second. "Maybe she's a CIA agent going undercover."

"Undercover as a Secret Service agent?"

"Why not? It's brilliant. The aliens will assume the government is busy tracking human crime."

"Why wouldn't she just go undercover as something not in the government?"

"That walking regulation book? She'd never be able to pull it off."

"I don't know, she got pretty snarky with Britta..."

By this time they had reached Astronomy. The alien was already in her usual seat, but something was different.

Troy pulled Abed out of the doorway and back into the hallway.

"Did you see that?"

"See what?" Abed asked, then paused and replayed the last few moments in his mind. "She changed her hair."

"She changed her hair," Troy repeated, sneaking a look back into the room. Last time, the alien's hair had been red with a green streak; now it was red with a purple streak. "What does it _mean_?"

"I don't know, but I don't like it," Abed answered grimly. "We've been dancing around the issue too long. The government's here now, and the alien's changing her behavior. We need to make our move before it all blows up in our faces."

"Agreed," Troy nodded seriously, postponing their mission just long enough for a handshake with Abed.

They entered the room quickly and, instead of taking up residence in the back row, sat on either side of the alien.

"Greetings," Abed said, polite but not too friendly. Troy echoed him with a second, "Greetings."

The alien looked back and forth at them for a moment. "Okay, I'll play along. 'Greetings' to you, too. Any special reason you're wearing your sunglasses inside, or do you just like feeling like a Corey Heart song?"

"They serve their purpose." Troy thought that sounded rather reasonable.

"Yeah, those fluorescent lights can be killer," the alien said.

"We noticed you're new around here." Abed made it sound like a question.

"I noticed that you guys have been watching me like creepers since my first day. Is that a tradition here at Greendale?"

Troy broke character for a minute. "Pretty much. Have you _met_ Starburns?"

The alien actually smiled. "God, what is with that guy? If you're going to spend that much time on your facial hair you could at _least_ try and bring back the lost art of the mutton chop."

"Well he did shave them off once. For charity, he said. We think maybe they caught on fire," Abed told her.

"Ouch. How did that go?"

"Well, no one could recognize him for five weeks until they grew back out."

"And it was heartbreaking for everyone, I'm sure," the alien deadpanned. "That doesn't really explain this little welcome party here."

Troy put on his most business-like voice. "We just wanted to introduce ourselves. We were a little surprised to see you, honestly. Don't get a lot of newcomers this time of year."

The alien shrugged. "My living situation's been a little up in the air, lately. It's been throwing off my plans."

"We understand that can be trying," Troy answered. "Arriving suddenly in a new place..."

"...surrounded by strangers..." Abed added

"...with an entirely different culture..."

The alien frowned. "Okay, I just moved here from South Dakota, it's like a ten hour drive, tops."

"Regardless," Troy said, in his grown-up voice. "We're here for you if you need anything."

"All right, thanks, guys." The alien looked thoughtful. "You know, I could use some help getting caught up on what I missed the last two weeks."

"Not a problem."

"And then there's the other little thing."

Here it was. Alien stuff, coming in fast. Troy stayed stoic behind his sunglasses, while inside he was flailing. "Yes?"

"Two small but oh so critical pieces of information."

He gulped. "Yes?"

The alien pointed to her right and her left, arms crossing over each other like Bugs Bunny giving someone bad directions. "Do you two have names, or do I just call you Thing 1 and Thing 2?"

"Abed," Troy said, and simultaneously:

"Troy," Abed said.

The alien looked back and forth for a second. "Not to make an ass out of you and me, but you guys did just introduce each other and not yourselves, right?"

Together, they chimed, "Right."

"Gotcha." The alien pointed at herself. "Claudia."

"Nice to meet you, Claudia." Abed held his hand out for a businesslike shake.

"Likewise, I think."

-

**Saturday**

Any thoughts Troy might have had about alien investigation (that being investigation _of_ aliens, not investigation _by_ an alien) was put on hold when Annie came and woke them up at 7 in the morning, smelling like coffee and Sharpies and work.

Troy didn't even open his eyes (or even wake up, really) as he muttered, "Tomorrow, Claudia, I'll help you build the elf city tomorrow." Okay, some of that might have been from a dream.

He felt like someone dumped a bucket of ice cold water on him when he heard a voice say, "Are those footie pajamas? With little bitty trucks?"

Troy shot bolt upright, protesting, "They're _fire trucks_. That's like the manliest thing on Earth."

"Alligator wrestling," Abed pointed out.

"They're the second manliest thing," Troy corrected.

Annie's government friend Myka was just staring at them, not smiling in that way that _totally_ meant someone was smiling. "I didn't even know they made footie pajama onesies in grown-up sizes."

"Well, they do." Troy stood up, with his most mature attitude, and said, "Welcome to our humble abode, Agent Bering. Can I get you anything?"

"Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Barnes, but no. Annie already showed me to the coffee maker." Myka looked around the apartment. "I'll admit, this isn't quite what I expected Annie's place would look like."

It wasn't what Troy had expected, either. The place was significantly cleaner than it had been when he'd gone to sleep just hours ago. Which meant Annie had been cleaning while they were asleep again, and was the carpet _vacuumed_? How the hell did she vacuum without waking them up?

"Well, you know, we do what we can," Annie chirped, and waved her hands dismissively like she hadn't been up all night making the place look good. "Guys, I thought you'd like to help us get stuff ready for the law enforcement career fair."

Troy thought about saying "no" and going back to sleep, but he looked over at Abed.

Abed gave him a tiny shake of the head.

Well, he was already awake at this point. "Sure, that sounds like fun," Troy said. How long could it take, after all?

"Great!" Annie pulled out a few thick packets of paper and handed one to each of them. They turned out to be (color-coded) (fifteen page) schedules of the day's work.

"Great," Troy echoed.

As he sat down to in front of a blank piece of poster board, he thought he saw Myka watching him. When he looked up, she just smiled at him sympathetically.

Maybe she wasn't that bad.

And if she was here, that meant she wasn't hunting aliens.

Troy wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

-

**Sunday**

Annie had reached the "frazzled" part of her work cycle (there was: inspired, cheery, determined, tired, fake cheery, frazzled, so freaked out she came back around to being zen, and finally, accomplished. Troy got tired just watching), so Troy felt a little bad for taking the day off from helping her plan the career fair, but only a little. He thought maybe he was getting carpool tunnel syndrome (his hand did feel like an underground road that had been driven on a lot, but he still thought that phrase was weird). And anyway, with Myka helping Annie out, this was the perfect time to check in with Claudia the Alien.

It was kind of disappointing she didn't have an awesome alien name, but probably Claudia was just a code name to avoid suspicion. Her real name was probably Uqa or Rlhxu or Amber or something.

Annie let them go when she told them they were helping a friend with class work, though she did ask, so casually that it had to be an act, "So is this that Claire girl you're meeting up with?"

"Claudia," Abed answered. "Also, yes."

"She sounds nice," Annie said. "Sure seems like you guys are hanging out with her a lot lately."

"Not really."

"Barely at all."

"Well, you should introduce me sometime," Annie said firmly. "Bring her to the career fair! It'll be a blast."

"Sure thing," Troy called out behind them as they left the apartment (that they hadn't left all of Saturday. Man, Troy didn't work this hard on any of this _own_ projects, even).

"Did you see that?" Abed asked, once they were a safe distance away from the building and any listening devices it might contain.

"See what?"

"The look on Agent Bering's face when I mentioned Claudia's name."

Troy thought back to it. "She just looked...normal. She didn't react at all."

"Exactly," Abed said. "Which is what you'd expect from a professional who was hiding the fact that she knew who we were talking about."

"Whoa," Troy said. He felt goosebumps on his back. No, wait, that was just his shirt bunching up weird under his jacket. He tugged at it. "Do you think Annie knows about Claudia?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Annie knows Myka from before, and Myka's an alien hunter. How do we know for sure that they weren't lying about how they met?"

"Hm." Abed had his thinking face on, the one he got when he tried to explain the plot holes in the Star Wars movies. "Agent Bering is on unfamiliar turf here. It's possible she brought Annie in on it to get some inside information."

"Annie did seem dead set on getting us to bring Claudia to the career fair."

"An alien in a building full of men in black."

"And women in black."

"And women," Abed nodded. "Sounds like a trap."

"Only one way to know for sure."

-

"So, hey," Troy said over chow mein and star charts. "Our friend Annie is throwing this thing next week."

"A party?" Claudia asked, shoveling more Chinese food onto her plate.

"An Annie-version of a party," Troy answered.

"Which is not a party at all," Abed clarified.

"It's like a career fair."

Claudia raised an eyebrow. "It's like a career fair because..."

"It _is_ a career fair," Troy finished.

Abed nodded. "Yeah, it's not so much 'like' as it is 'exactly the same as'."

"Ah, employment," Claudia sighed. "That great big unattainable dream in the sky. Sounds delightfully monotonous."

"There'll be free snacks."

"I'm in."

"Great," Troy said in a fake casual voice that was way more convincing than Annie's fake casual voice. "We'll let Agent Bering know that there's one more RSVP."

Claudia held up two fingers. "Two questions: One, did you just pronounce the acronym R-S-V-P like it was a word, despite it not having any vowels, and two, 'agent'?"

Troy shook his head. "Dude, v can be a vowel sometimes. It's funky like that."

For some reason, Claudia and Abed looked at each other in that wordless communication thing that Abed usually did with Troy. Troy didn't know what they were communicating, exactly, but they seemed to come to some kind of conclusion.

Abed took over the explanation. "Agent Bering is a friend of Annie's. She's helping set it up. And she's going to be one of the speakers. It's a law enforcement focused career fair."

Claudia rolled her eyes. "Great, a room full of cops. My favorite."

"Something wrong with cops?" Abed asked intently.

Claudia shrugged. "It's no biggie, they just make me uncomfortable sometimes. I did some stupid shit when I was a kid, got into a little trouble."

Troy got swept up in a wave of nostalgia. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Man, those were the good old days."

"Speaking of stupid shit," Claudia said, tapping on the star chart in front of them. "What exactly is this I hear about weekly midnight labs?"

Troy nodded. "That's the downside of the class."

"One of the downsides," Abed added.

"It's like if the class is one of those number things you roll in Dungeons and Dragons, with all the sides on them, the midnight labs are a side that faces downward, but maybe not the very bottom one." Troy made a series of hand gestures that he hoped illustrated his point. The chopsticks made it a little difficult.

"Gotcha, we failed our saving throw against a social life," Claudia nodded. "But what are we supposed to do out there besides freeze to death and debate who we'll kill first for food?"

Abed rattled off the answer. "Identify the constellations, chart the phase of the moon, and note any unusual phenomenon." As the last item slipped out, both he and Troy glanced at each other with wide eyes.

Claudia didn't pick up on the significance of the phrase. She just snorted. "What, unusual phenomenon like rain? There's nothing we can do outside that we couldn't do with a star chart or a planetarium, except suffer. I think Baker's a sadist."

"It's not all bad," Abed said. "Last week we saw a satellite crash."

Claudia looked genuinely interested in something for the first time since Troy had met her. "Really? Where?"

"Well, we didn't actually see it on the ground," Troy admitted. "But it got pretty close. And it was glowing like crazy. Annie says it probably burned up before it hit the ground, but I don't know. I think it's still out in the woods somewhere."

Troy played it cool, but he could see Abed in the corner of his eye, carefully scrutinizing Claudia's face as she took in this piece of information.

Claudia reverted back to indifference. "That would be pretty cool. You gonna eat that spring roll?"

-

By the time Troy and Abed returned to the apartment, Agent Bering had departed for the night.

The signs of their progress hung all around the apartment – giant to-do lists with all the items checked off, informational sheets printed out, other odds and ends (was that a _police car_ piñata and oh my _god_ it totally was and why didn't Troy get to help out with the coolest part of the whole thing?).

Annie was hunched over the table, which was a total mess (and the fact that it was okay for Annie to make a mess for her schoolwork and not for Troy and Abed to make a mess for their TV, or even for Abed's film projects, felt like a total double standard, but Troy tried to bring that up one time and got three words out before Annie turned the Bambi eyes on him and he somehow ended up making her balloon animals to apologize for her own mess). She gave them the world's tiniest smile when they came in, and her voice even sounded tired when she asked, "So how did the studying go?"

"Pretty good," Troy answered. "Oh, and you'll be glad to know that Claudia's coming to the career fair."

"Great!" Annie actually seemed revitalized by that, which Troy thought was a good sign, until he looked closer and saw a touch of mania in Annie's eyes. "You know, it'll be so good getting to know her. You know, her being the new kid in school and all, I remember how hard that was. Well, not being the new kid in school, maybe, but being the new kid in rehab was very hard. We should have thrown her some kind of welcome party."

"Um...Annie? People float in and out of Greendale all the time, and all the party they get is one of the Dean's bad speeches."

"We got cake on our first day, remember?" Annie pressed on.

"So, you want to get her some cake or something?"

"I don't know, I thought I should at least say hello. She's in Astronomy, right? So she'll be at that lab tomorrow night?"

"Yeah," Troy said cautiously.

"Okay, so I could go with you guys and meet her there." Annie nodded like it was decided. "Besides, I hear Professor Baker has a really cool telescope."

Troy felt his mind splitting in two ways, which felt kind of like when his brain wrinkled, but not exactly. On the one hand, Annie was getting that tone of voice she had when Other Annie started beating her at stuff, or any other time that some new girl showed up who could challenge Annie's specialness. Which was ridiculous, because nobody could challenge Annie's specialness, especially not an alien. But Troy couldn't _tell_ Annie that Claudia was an alien, especially not if Annie was working with Agent Bering, which was the other way Troy's mind was splitting, and wow, no wonder so maybe people who dealt with aliens ended up crazy. Troy's brain hurt.

Fortunately, Abed stepped up. "Are you sure? You've been working pretty hard on this career fair. I don't think what you really need is staying up past midnight out in the cold for an assignment that's not even for one of your classes."

"Don't be silly! It'll be fun."

And that was the last anyone got to say about that.

-

**Monday**

"Ah, the grandeur of the great outdoors, the beauty of the heavens, the majesty and wonder of the cosmos." Claudia gestured theatrically at the overcast sky, stamping her feet to stay warm.

"Well, look on the bright side," Annie said. "We can study cloud formations. Oh, and talk about precipitation! I know a fun little song."

"Wonderful," Claudia muttered, pulling her hood up. "I'm going to cover my ears, but I swear that's _just_ for warmth and not for noise cancellation, I swear."

"Oh." Annie's smile dimmed a little. "I can sing it later, that's okay."

Troy and Abed stood a few feet apart and simply observed.

"It's like putting an aardvark next to a jellyfish," Troy whispered. "It's like, they're swimming around like they've never seen each other before and they're afraid of shocking each other, and also one of them has tentacles."

"Does that make Claudia the jellyfish?"

"Does she have tentacles?"

"Probably not," Abed said. "I don't know where she'd hide them, she wears pretty tight pants."

Troy looked over at Claudia to check for tentacles. No sign of them anywhere, and the girls were drifting back their way, so he broke off the search and faked a totally innocent conversation with Abed. "So, yeah, Batman spaghetti green."

Claudia gave him a bit of a funny look, but Annie wasn't even phased enough to look over at him. Success.

"Apparently we missed the exciting night," Claudia told Annie. "Space debris falling to earth."

"It probably didn't make it _all_ the way to the earth," Annie corrected.

"Yeah, Mario and Luigi told me you were a skeptic," Claudia said, and ignored Troy and Abed's flurry of gestures back and forth, attempting to discern which was which. "Come on, Edison," Claudia continued. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

Annie sniffed. "I love adventure. As long as I've had a chance to double check the map and pack appropriately and – "

Claudia cut her off. "So you probably wouldn’t be interested in going looking for the meteor."

"No, because there's nothing to find. Adventure is one thing, but pointless wandering in a forest at night is just silly."

"Yeah, silly, or _totally awesome_ ," Claudia said. "And who knows? The earth gets hit by a few hundred meteorites every year."

"That's an estimate," Annie said. "The chance of there being one on this particular occasion isn't very likely."

Claudia shrugged. "Maybe, but it's one hundred percent likely to be more interesting than sitting around here watching Leonard bully Gary out of his turn at the telescope. Come on."

"Pretty irrefutable logic," Abed pointed out.

Annie huffed. "If you're all so determined to go wandering around, I should go with you and make sure you don't hurt yourself."

Claudia grinned at Annie. "Why, do my eyes deceive me, or do we have a bona fide Girl Scout with us?"

"There's no need to be so condescending. I'm certified in First Aid, CPR, water rescue, edible plant – "

"Whoa, hey, no condescension intended," Claudia held up her hands in surrender. "I have the utmost respect for women of all uniforms. Never could get the hang of Girl Scouts, myself," she added. "I kept picking fights with the other Brownies. Little badge-wearing bitches..." She didn't seem to notice that she'd trailed off.

There was a silent moment.

"I'm sensing a whole lot of unresolved issues right up in here," Troy circled her hand to indicate Claudia's general direction. That snapped her out of her funk. "And maybe right now isn't the prime moment for that."

"Yeah, we should probably just go."

The four had just reached the tree line when:

"Wait!" Professor Baker ran up after them, panting. "Where do you all think you're going?"

"Um...bathroom break?" Troy suggested.

"Find a friendly bush," Claudia added.

The professor raised an eyebrow. "All four of you?"

Annie stepped forward and flashed her best 'teacher's pet, I'd never do anything against the rules' smile (which against all logic totally worked, despite Annie not even being in this class or ever having met this professor before). "Well, Claudia really has to go, and I have to go with her – buddy system, you know – and it's not safe out in the woods for two women alone at night. You wouldn't want us to endanger ourselves, would you?"

"Well, no, of course – "

"Great!" Annie chirped. "We'll be right back."

She spun on her heel and grabbed Claudia by the arm, pulling her along.

"Nice moves, Goody Two-Shoes. Why the big rush, though?"

"I'm trying to lose him before he remembers that there's a public restroom just down the hill."

"Right."

Troy and Abed followed closely behind the girls. Abed and Annie switched their flashlights on, but it was still slow going through the trees. They took up single file, with Annie leading the way and Troy bringing up the rear.

The path they were on wasn't much of a path. It didn't look like any humans had walked down it for a long time. Maybe aliens, if they were really small, like ET. Except Claudia was big and person-sized. Maybe she changed shape and got bigger and more human. And if she could do that, maybe she could turn into a bear, which would be _awesome_ , though a bear would probably have an even harder time on this trail. Maybe a deer. Or a bunny...

"Where about was it heading?" Claudia asked. For some reason, she spoke in a whisper.

Abed pointed with his flashlight, up ahead and to the left. "That way." He was whispering too. Troy started to wonder what could be out in the forest that might overhear them, and how that probably wouldn't be a good thing, and he _really_ should have brought his nunchucks. He had a duty to protect the ladies, after all.

"After you," Claudia gestured, and Annie, starting to look a little excited about the adventure, stepped off the path.

They'd hardly been walking for a minute again when Annie stopped them. "Wait."

"What?" Troy hoped they could find the alien spaceship, or meteor, or whatever it had been, soon. That story about having to find a friendly bush was getting to be a little too true.

"This doesn't look right," Annie muttered, sweeping her flashlight back and forth.

"What doesn't?" Claudia asked intensely.

"The foliage." Annie knelt and pulled at a couple of plants. "These don't grow in Colorado."

"Invasive species," Abed suggested automatically, but he didn't sound very convinced.

"I don't know," Annie admitted, a little shakily. "Look at the trees."

Troy didn't see anything special about the trees, but this was Annie asking, and he trusted Annie to know what she was talking about. So he looked, and he heard a hiss of recognition from the others, and he kept looking until he spotted it.

The trees were _smaller_ than they had been a minute ago. Way smaller. Like, baby tree smaller.

"What the..."

"We need to backtrack," Annie said. "Obviously, we wandered into some tree nursery, out in the forest, and we should get back on the path before we squash someone's hard work."

"I wouldn't be so sure about this," Abed said. "For one thing, there's no path."

"What do you mean there's no path?" Troy asked. He was starting – in a calm, cool, mature, collected, Agent Will Smith kind of way – to lose his shit. "How can there not be a path?"

"Look behind you."

Annie, Troy, and Claudia turned, very slowly, to see what Abed had already discovered – that behind them there was nothing but trees, more trees, and all the wrong trees.

"Okay, now we really need to find the path." Annie said this with the firm conviction that just by going backwards everything would return to normal.

"No, we need to keep moving forward," Claudia insisted. "Look, something happened, right? So we just need to find out what."

"I don't know," Abed said. "If we stepped through some kind of interdimensional portal, we might be better off simply retracing our steps and passing back through it before it closes."

"You're assuming it goes both ways," Troy argued.

"Guys, enough," Annie snapped. "This isn't a TV show, this is our life. There's no such thing as interdimensional portals. We just got off track and need to get back to the group before they worry about us. Come on, let's – "

An eerie wail split through the night.

The group waited in petrified silence, not even breathing, as the sound faded from the air around them.

"Okay," Claudia said, in the quietest whisper yet. "I think Den Mother Edison has the right idea and we should get the hell away from here right now."

"Den Mother?!"

"Not the best time and – "

Another wail, louder than the first one.

Without another word, they ran.

Troy felt branches whipping him in the arms, the face; nearly tripped over a dozen roots and shrubs, but kept running. He looked back, over and over again, to check that the girls were running okay, and slowed down slightly when Annie stumbled – but she righted herself and kept running.

They'd been running for _way_ too long. They should have blown right past the path, but it wasn't there. Nothing was right. Troy looked up at the stars, looked for one of those stupid constellations that the professor had made them spot, over and over again, and didn't find a single one.

And hadn't it been cloudy...?

He looked back from the heavens to the earth and saw Claudia slowing way down, reaching to pull something out of her pocket.

Troy kept running for a split second, but then there was another wail, and damn, he couldn't just leave her behind –

He circled back around and grabbed her. "What are you doing?"

"Calling in the cavalry," Claudia said.

He looked down at the device in her hands. "A steampunk cellphone? Really? Are you just too hipster for an iPhone?"

"Not exactly." Claudia flipped open the lid to expose the weirdest phone Troy had ever seen. There were no numbers, no call button, just a large round screen, fully of static. "Oh, shit."

"Come on, there's something out there and it doesn't sound nice."

"There's something in here that doesn't sound nice! I should be able to get someone."

"Maybe you don't have service."

"I always have service." Claudia tore open the back panel, exposing the guts of the machine, but could barely see anything. Annie and Abed had the flashlights. Shoot, if only one of them were here –

"This is not the time for this," Troy grabbed Claudia and pulled her along. She tore her arm free but ran alongside him.

Damn, it really was dark out here. They should have found the lights of civilization by now. It was like cars and streetlights and all that had just disappeared –

Troy's foot found a root, in the darkness, and clung to it. Troy fell to the ground, heavily, the wind knocked out of him.

He heard feet approaching. Claudia's face popped into his world view. "Troy! Troy, are you okay?"

Another eerie call of death from whatever currently-and-hopefully-eternally unseen creature was out in the night. Yeah, it was definitely following them.

"I'm..." Troy wheezed, unable to say any more.

"Shit," Claudia muttered. "Guys! Guys, Troy's hurt, I need help back here!"

From so far away, Troy heard Abed call back. "Where are you?"

"Follow my voice!" Claudia yelled.

"Quiet," Troy grunted. "It'll...find us."

"It's probably nothing. You need help. Abed! Over here!"

Abed appeared from the brush, dropping to his knees beside Troy. "You okay, buddy? Need a hand up?"

"I think he needs a whole body up, maybe two," Claudia said.

"I got this," Abed assured her. "I'm stronger than I look. Here, you take the flashlight."

Abed pulled him back up to his feet with on smooth motion, keeping one of Troy's arms over his shoulders. "Think you can move?"

"I can try," Troy wheezed.

"It's not over 'til the fat lady sings."

"Thought we were doing...Men In Black."

"We can do both."

"All right, this is touching, now let's go!" Claudia waved them forward with the flashlight, but before they could move –

It jumped out of the bushes like a nightmare, or that zombie in _Dead Attack: Bloodlust_ that kept killing Troy on the same level, over and over.

Troy was aware of his brain shutting off at the sight of it. He could only take in fractions of thoughts, like:

teeth

claws

scales

teeth

tail

teeth

dinosaur?

TEETH

"G-guys," a voice said from somewhere in the darkness. Troy knew that voice, but at this moment, everything outside of the velociraptor that had come to kill them just ceased to exist. "G-guys, that's a dinosaur right? A mother fucking dinosaur. A fucking...fuck...dinosaur."

"A velociraptor," another voice said. How were they even making their _mouths_ make _sounds_ right now when there was a _dinosaur about to devour them while they were alive_. "Jurassic Park."

"Oh, well, that's good to know it's a mother fucking – "

The velociraptor opened its mouth to expose its hideous, terrible, life destroying teeth, and _**ROAR**_ at them.

The sound woke Troy up again, physically if not mentally. His brain was programmed to run from sounds like that, and it did. It turn and ran, Claudia and Abed beside him, and ran and ran and ran and ran smack dab into Leonard, knocking him over.

"Now look what you've done," the octogenarian grumped. "You owe me a new hip, boy."

"Shut up, Leonard," Troy said, still on auto-pilot, though part of him was starting to remember its basic functions besides running. Like, looking around.

They were back with the class, the professor giving them dirty looks, and Annie just looking at them with big eyes, like she thought she could write words with her brain and send them through her eyeballs into his ears. Which _would_ be pretty cool.

"Oh look," Claudia said weakly. "We're home."

"And you got some 'splainin' to do," Abed told her.

"You know that Ricky never actually – "

"Trust me," Troy sighed. "He knows."

-

**Tuesday**

Claudia didn't protest when they insisted she come back to the apartment and answer a few question, or even when Abed pointed a desk light at her as she sat at their kitchen table, like it was an interrogation room. She did, however, insist on taking out the weirdest looking phone Annie had ever seen and tinkering with it before she would so much as look at any of them.

Annie didn't know what she was up to, but there was a lot of poking around with wires and muttering and at one point something that sounded like a Lewis Black impression. Whatever – that wasn't the important thing. Annie has some questions of her own, first.

She grabbed Troy and Abed by an arm each and dragged them into the Dreamatorium, leaving the door open a crack so they could still see Claudia. Then she crossed her arms in her fiercest, most no-nonsense way, and glared at them. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"

"Don't worry, Annie," Abed said. "We have it under control."

Annie just kept staring at Troy. Abed wasn't going to break. But Troy?

She counted in her head. Five, four, three, two –

"Claudia's an alien and her spaceship crashed to earth last week and also there were dinosaurs," Troy babbled.

Abed looked at him reproachfully. "Agent T."

"Sorry, man, she looked at me."

Annie threw her arms in the air. "That's what this is, one of your silly games? You ran out of class, dragged some poor girl over here in the middle of the night, almost broke your necks running through the forest in the dark, all for some game?"

"It's not a game, Annie," Abed said seriously.

"I swear, there was a dinosaur out there. It almost got us."

Annie sighed. The trouble was, they sounded so _sincere_. And Abed could make anything sound convincing, but Troy was usually more of an open book, and now...

Now he really sounded like he believed it. Which worried her, a bit.

"Fine," Annie said. "I think I'd like to hear what Claudia has to say about all this."

They stepped back into the living room in time to hear Claudia arguing with someone.

"Cross my heart and hope to die, Artie, which I almost did like fifteen minutes ago, so I'd think that would count for double."

An angry, oddly tinny, voice responded. "Did you at least get any _useful_ information?"

Another, even more distant voice added: "Yeah, did you get a vibe?"

"No, Pete, I did not get a vibe, because of the way I was running for my life. As for useful information, that's what I called you for, and you've been so _very_ helpful." Claudia looked over her shoulder, saw Annie and Troy and Abed watching her, and turned back to her conversation. "Look, could you guys just try digging around and see if anything jumps out? I gotta go."

She snapped the lid on the phone quickly and put it in a pocket.

"So here we are," Claudia said. "You know, usually I don't go home with boys after the first date, especially not if it's two boys and their female roommate all together."

"We need to talk." Abed sat across the table from Claudia, with Troy standing over them. Annie hovered on the edges, not sure what was going on except that they were all being very silly about it.

"About?" Claudia tried for nonchalant and failed, miserably. She coughed and tried again. "About what?"

"We know you're an alien and you have something to do with this."

"Abed!" Annie protested, exasperated by all the nonsense and determined to finally get some sense from _somebody_. "She's not an alien. How would that even be possible? I'm sorry," she turned to Claudia, "they get too wrapped up in their games sometimes."

"Look, you're both right," Claudia said. "I'm not an alien."

Troy looked disappointed.

Claudia sighed and continued. "I might have something to do with the dinosaur, though."

"Please, Claudia, don't encourage them – " Annie started.

"I'm here to hunt down a mysterious artifact with the power to warp reality."

Annie threw up her arms and left the room, though the gesture was probably undercut by the fact that she snuck back in again a moment later. Okay, so everyone was being completely irrational, but she couldn't help it if she was a teeny bit interested in whatever it was that was going on.

Abed gestured at Troy. "A word?"

They shuffled a few feet away from the table, though Annie could still hear them just fine, which meant Claudia could, too.

"Consensus?"

"I don't know," Troy put his fist to his chin, visibly thinking. "We've been so focused on aliens, I didn't consider other possibilities. This changes things completely..."

Abed turned over to look at Claudia, who was – Annie scooted closer to be sure – silently laughing into her hands. "This artifact," he started. "Could it be from another world?"

Claudia coughed again and straightened up, mimicking professionalism. "Probably not."

Abed and Troy whispered back and forth for a moment.

Abed turned back around. "But it's something mysterious with unknown, inexplicable powers?"

"Yes."

"Dangerous?"

"There's a very good chance."

"Old and valuable?"

"Old, probably, valuable, it's a toss up."

Abed and Troy looked at each other for a moment, and said, perfectly in synch: "Indiana Jones."

So much for Claudia getting the boys to make more sense. Annie stepped forward again. "Okay, I think you all need to have a good night's sleep and really think things over."

"Yeah, I should probably go," Claudia said, gathering her things. "My friend's probably worried about me."

Abed looked down, thinking, and looked back up again when he made the connection. "Annie's government friend. She's not your antagonist, she's working with you."

Claudia just smiled.

Annie felt thrown for a loop. "Myka? What does she have to do with anything?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Abed asked. "They work together. Think about it: strange lights in the sky, and the next day, there's a new girl in town who claims to just be an average student but is really hunting a mysterious superpowered artifact of undetermined origin. Next a government agent comes calling, supposedly just to help out an old friend, but it just happens to be the same time that dinosaurs appear in Greendale? Unlikely."

Annie rolled her eyes. "Guys, Myka's here to help me out with the career fair."

"But did you ask her to come, or did she bring it up?"

"Well, I asked her, but – " Annie stopped, and thought about it. "I mean, I asked her a while ago, and she was busy, but then she said she could make it out this week. But that doesn't _prove_ anything," she insisted, as Troy's face lit up.

"Hate to break it to you, kid," Claudia said, while Annie asked 'kid?' in outrage, "but Myka's here for the same reason I am. Seeing you is cool, sure. And she's really excited about it. But it's also about the artifact."

Annie gave in. She wasn't going to protest it anymore; their story just kept getting weirder and weirder. Besides, the next time she saw Myka, she could just sort of casually bring it up, and Myka would explain that of course this whole thing wasn't true and everything would be neat and orderly and make sense again. That was a good plan.

Annie headed off to bed and left the strangeness of the night behind her. And if she dreamed and too-small trees or a horrible noise drifting through the cold air, she didn't admit it to anyone.

-

**Tuesday (still)**

Annie chattered about plans for the upcoming career fair the whole way to school, partly because it helped her assuage her nerves, partly because she still had some details she needed to work out, and only a little bit to keep Troy and Abed from talking about aliens.

Once they got to school she was so busy running around, between classes and extra credit assignments and talking to the Dean and making calls...

She didn't have time to call Myka, but anyway, there wasn't anything to be worried about except maybe that she was going to have to listen to way too much John Williams for the next week or two until the guys found something else to glom onto.

So she'd pretty much managed to put the whole thing out of her mind and focus on the things she needed to get done by the time she ran into Claudia in the hallway.

"Canny Annie! Just the person I want to see." Before Annie could open her mouth to respond, Claudia dragged her into an empty classroom. "Can we talk?"

"You know, we can talk in the hallway just fine."

"Nope, not really." Claudia shut the door and leaned up against it, as if barricading it from some unknown menace.

Whatever annoyance Annie had about the situation ebbed as she took in Claudia's state of being. Her hand and arms were covered in little scratches and bruises from their flight through the woods last night, and her hair was a mess, like she'd been running her fingers through it all day. Her eyes were wild, with dark circles underneath them, and she looked...worried.

"Are you okay?" Annie asked, because what else what she supposed to say?

"Yeah, no, I'm great." Claudia breathed shakily. "I just spent all night wandering around the woods looking for dinosaurs. No big." At the look on Annie's face, Claudia hastily continued. "And before you tell me there was no dinosaur – I get it, pics or it didn't happen. And you're smart, and you like logic, and rules, and you want the world to follow those rules, but the world doesn't always work like that. Trust me, weird shit happens _all_ the time, and most of that time it sucks."

"You realize how crazy you sound?"

"Trust me, I know all about sounding crazy." Claudia laughed. It wasn't a very happy sounding laugh. "But I think this whole thing that happens last night is bugging you a little too much and you're _trying_ so, so hard to pretend it was nothing, but you can't quite make yourself buy it. Am I right?"

Something about this conversation was putting Annie on the defensive. "I don't have to answer that," she snapped. "And you can make Troy and Abed play along, but you don't know me or you wouldn't bother trying."

"I think I know you just the littlest bit," Claudia said. "Come on, smartest girl in the room but people still treat you like a kid? You get so focused on your goal that you end up breaking under the pressure?"

Annie broke eye contact.

"And I know one other thing about you," Claudia continued. "I know you're perceptive, and I know you saw those trees and you know that wasn't right. Maybe the dinosaur is just me and the guys playing a joke, and maybe that weird sound was – was an owl or something stupid, but _you're_ the one who saw those trees. Those were not the right trees. They're not even the same trees that were there when I tromped around the forest at ass o'clock in the morning last night. And you know that's not right."

"There's an explanation," Annie insisted. "Every time something weird like this happens, and people say it's – aliens, or magic, or miracles – there's always something real behind it."

"Oh, it is real," Claudia said. "That doesn't stop it from being something weird."

"This is ridiculous," Annie said. She felt like she'd been saying that all her life. She pushed past Claudia to get to the door. "You should really take care of yourself. You're going to get sick if you keep this up."

Then she opened the door and strode through it boldly, making a point that this was the end of this nonsense.

And then stopped, because nonsense had come to smack her in the face.

The hideous fluorescent light, linoleum floors, and posters of students photoshopped to look like they were smiling – gone. The other students – gone.

Greendale – gone.

Instead Annie found herself standing in a luxurious hallway. Thick carpet hushed her footsteps; tapestries hung along the walls. The air was thick with silence and warm humidity. Annie felt sweat prickling on her brow and wiped it off absentmindedly.

The light was dim, so it took her eyes a moment to adjust. It seemed like the only lighting came from a candle chandelier over head.

"Where..."

She trailed off, not even sure how she'd finish that sentence.

"Holy old money, Batman," Claudia whispered behind her. Her voice held an odd note of reverence. "I think something weird just happened again."

Annie thought about arguing that this was a hallucination, or a mirage, or just the quickest, weirdest remodel of all time, but she couldn't make herself say anything, particularly not once she turned around to look at Claudia and saw that the door they'd just walked through, instead of leading to a classroom, led to parlor. A parlor, with light, fancy furniture, and a large bay window, and was that a _harpsichord_ in the corner –

"Edison!" Claudia called to her, possibly for the second or third time. "Keep it together, Edison. We gotta figure this thing out."

"Right. Right, we have to figure out where we are, and how we got here, and how to get back. Simple."

"Yeah, easy as pie. One, two, three." Claudia didn't sound all that much more collected than Annie was, but as long as they were both faking it Annie thought they'd be okay. "So, this is, what, a mansion?"

"It looks like something from Pride and Prejudice," Annie thought out loud. "The one with Colin Firth, which was way better than the Keira Knightly movie."

"Eh, I only like the one with zombies."

"What, you never wished for a Mr. Darcy?"

"I spent my teen years hunting for a different kind of guy," Claudia said cryptically, drifting down the hallway. "Whoa, portraits."

Annie followed after her, poking her head through the doorway to see – yes, row after row of portraits of stoic looking men and women, just like the ones people used to have made of their family members. None of them were labeled, though, so they weren't particularly helpful to Annie.

She followed Claudia through the portrait room and into a large with one of those impractically long tables.

"Check this out," Annie said, getting a little bolder as she walked over to a display case filled with fancy little knick-knacks. "This stuff must cost a fortune."

"And it's all in a pretty nice package," Claudia said, eyes still scanning the room around them. "This is _unreal_ , I didn't think places like this still existed."

"Maybe it's a historical building," Annie suggested.

"I think those usually have plaques," Claudia pointed out. "Maybe just some rich person really likes the classier, impractical things in life."

"Maybe," Annie said. She looked around again. "There's just – it's weird."

"What?"

"Oh, it's probably nothing."

"No, out with it."

"Well...there's no light fixtures, or electrical sockets."

"And no AC," Claudia added. "Unfortunately. Hope my deodorant holds out."

"And it's in _really_ good condition," Annie continued. "If someone put money into keep this place nice, don't you think they'd modernize it just the littlest bit? I mean, this can't even be up to code."

"Maybe – "

"You there!" a stern voice rang out from the other side of the room. Annie and Claudia looked up to see every stereotype of a butler, bundled into one, pointing at them and looking politely ticked off. "How did you get in here?"

"I think that's our cue to leave," Claudia whispered.

"After you," Annie said, and they took off at a run.

It took them a good five minutes of twisty turn – "Jesus, how many rooms does this place have?" "Wait, we're going in _circles_!" – to find an exit. The butler almost caught up to them once, but Annie knocked over a couple of chairs and a few unlit but heavy candelabras, for good measure, and they lost him in the chaos.

They finally reached the outside and kept running, down the large sloping lawn of the mansion and past the ornate metal gate.

They didn't stop until they'd found a wall to hide behind. Annie held her breath, listening to hear if they were followed, but heard only her racing heart.

She turned on Claudia when she felt sure they were safe. "Is there always so much _running_ with you?"

Claudia laughed maniacally. "Here I was about to ask you the same thing."

"No, never," Annie said, before rethinking. "Well, sometimes."

Claudia clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Annie, I think you have a promising career of mystery solving ahead of you. That, or petty crime."

Annie looked at her, outraged. "I would never solve mysteries!"

Whatever breath they had managed to catch back they lost to laughter.

"Claudia, you know something about this, right?"

"Oh, so now I'm not just a crazy person?"

"Okay, maybe I don't know everything in the world," Annie admitted. She waved an arm out, encompassing the beautiful landscape around them. "But I know that _this_ is not Greendale Community College, which is where we were a moment ago, so something has to be happening, right? I just...have you _ever_ seen anything like this?"

Claudia thought about it a minute. "Yeah," she said slowly. "Once. Movies were getting superimposed over the real world."

"That doesn't sound too bad," Annie said weakly.

"They were real, though. They could really hurt you. And one of them was about a scientist who destroys the world..."

"But that didn't happen. So there has to be a way of stopping it, right?"

"First things first," Claudia said. "Where are we, how did we get here, how do we get back, right?" She pulled out her steampunk phone again and flipped it open. "Maybe we can get an assist on this one. Hey, Artie, we have a problem with – " She looked down at the screen belatedly, and stopped talking. "Um."

The screen was nothing but static.

"Damn it!" Claudia slammed the lid shut. "Why does that keep happening?"

"It's okay, we'll figure this out ourselves." Annie looked around. "We just have to find clues."

"I always wanted to take a vacation with Nancy Drew," Claudia said, pocketing her phone. "So what's the story here?"

"It's not just the house," Annie said. "Look at this whole place! That's an actual lamppost."

"A lamppost on a cobblestone road," Claudia added.

Annie started counting on her fingers. "There's no cars, no pavement, no mailboxes, no fire hydrants..."

"No signs of modern civilization."

"This really _is_ like Pride and Prejudice. This is looks like a period piece set over a hundred years ago."

"So either we're in Amish town, which seems unlikely given the lack of barn-raising and totally rockin' beards, or." Even Claudia seemed reluctant to say it. "Or we really are a hundred years back."

"That's impossible," Annie said. "Isn't it?"

"Not really sure," Claudia admitted. "Not like this. But we could find somebody and ask them the date. Or a newspaper or something, God, that's so cliché."

"All right, let's go," Annie said, feeling determination to accomplish the goal settle in and obscure any fears or doubts or lingering thoughts of _this is so, so crazy, little Annie Adderall_. She set off in the opposite direction from the house they'd first been in, looking over her shoulder at Claudia. "We'll find something in no time, I'm sure!"

"You're not going to find anything walking backwards," Jeff said.

 _Jeff_?

Annie spun around to look forward, and sure enough, there was Jeff. There too were lockers, water fountains, a bustling mass of unshaven students, squeaky floors, a faint smell of chicken fingers.

They were back in Greendale.

"Whoa," she heard Claudia say behind her. "Someone reset the world, we've got a serious glitch."

"Are you two all right?" Jeff asked smugly. "You look dazzled. I often have this effect on women. Tragically, it's incurable."

"Oh, well, between that and your giant forehead, you must be the expert on tragic conditions," Claudia said.

Jeff reached up, about to touch his forehead, then tried to play it off like he was scratching the back of his neck. "It's not that big. Right?" he asked Annie.

Annie shrugged and held up two fingers close together, in the unspoken gesture of, 'yeah, a little.'

Jeff walked away quickly.

"Wow, sore spot much?"

"He'll get over it," Annie said. "But I think it's time we brought Myka in on this."

"On it. Assuming life doesn't hate me." Claudia pulled out her phone-thing and flipped it open. This time, the screen sparked to life with a tiny video of Myka's face, pressed up toward the screen and looking worried.

"Claudia? Where are you? I tried calling you – "

"Yeah, had some interference. Look, Annie and I have an idea about what's going on. Meet us in the cafeteria for lunch?"

" _That_ cafeteria?" Myka wrinkled her nose. "Okay, but I think I'll bring lunch with me."

"Can't say I blame you," Claudia said before disconnecting the call.

"What is that thing, anyway?" Annie asked. "There's no way that comes standard from Verizon."

"No, it's more of an old-fashioned video chat walkie-talkie."

Annie stared at Claudia. "You realize that makes even less sense than before you said anything."

"Yeah, got that."

-

The study group had staked out the usual too-small table in the cafeteria, and since Myka hadn't showed yet, Annie thought they could at least say hi.

As she and Claudia approached, Annie noticed that Jeff had donned a cowboy hat at some point since their run in. He pulled it a little lower over his eyes when he saw them, though Annie knew he'd never admit it.

"Hey guys," Annie said, waving at the group. "You guys know Claudia? She's in Abed and Troy's Astronomy class."

There was a round of half-hearted greetings, the most apathetic of which came from Jeff. Claudia responded with a smirk and a "Nice hat, by the way."

Jeff played it off like he didn't care. "Oh, this? Some stupid stunt in our statistics class. Honestly, the theater kids are getting to be as bad as the hat club."

"You guys don't seriously have a hat club," Claudia asked Abed.

"Not since the lawsuit," he answered.

"I think it sounds fun," Britta said. "Wish someone would try to make my Philosophy class more interesting."

"But Britta," Annie said brightly. "I thought you loved that pretentious meandering hippie talk."

"Come on, Annie, there's 'hippie' and then there's 'too high to even remember that he's the professor' hippie. Which is really only funny for the first three lectures."

"How did the theater kids make statistics more interesting?" Claudia asked. "Did they really explore the deep motivation of the normal distribution curve?"

"No, they held the classroom hostage. Recreated it to look like an old West saloon. Did a pretty good job of it, actually," Jeff frowned, remembering. "Got some guys to play really convincing outlaws. In chaps."

"Jeff really liked the chaps, if you know what I mean." Pierce waved his hand suggestively.

Britta rolled her eyes. "I think we all know – "

"I mean because he's gay."

Shirley put on her best 'sweet now but going to give you hell later' voice. "Yes, thank you for that, Pierce." In a more genuinely nice voice, she spoke to Annie and Claudia. "Won't you girls pull up some chairs? We could make room at the table."

"How?" Jeff groused. "Britta's salad is on my sandwich already."

"You wish, John Wayne, your sandwich is on my salad."

"Oh, that's okay," Annie interrupted. "We're meeting my friend Myka for lunch. We still have a few things to talk about for the career fair."

Annie was conscious, suddenly, of twelve eyeballs resolutely avoiding her. Well, Shirley wasn't the only one who could menace with sweetness. "You guys are all going to be there early to help me set up for it, right?"

Mumbled responses.

"Right?"

"Yes, Annie," the study group sighed as one.

"Good!" Annie chirped, like that was a good thing. "Oh, look, there's Myka," she pointed to the agent, standing across the cafeteria and surveying it as though it were a crime scene. It seemed appropriate. It had been a crime scene on multiple occasions before, and there was about a fifty percent chance something illegal was going on right now.

"Well, it's been...a thing...meeting you guys," Claudia half-waved at the study group.

"We'll come with," Abed said.

"Yeah, you know how much we love...career fairs...and...cops...laws..." Troy trailed off like he wasn't sure where he was going.

"Great, we can use your help," Claudia steered him away with an arm around his shoulders. "Good job there, champ, I don't think they suspected a thing."

Annie glommed onto Myka as soon as they were within arm's reach. "Okay so really weird things have been happening and apparently that's what you do, is really weird things, which, you know, you could have told me before, but I can see how you didn't, there's probably all kinds of confidentiality agreements, am I going to have to sign one of those, because that really – "

"Annie, breathe," Myka instructed. "I know this is probably sudden, and you hate having unexpected things pop up, but it's not a big deal. No one's dead – "

"Yet," Claudia interjected.

"Claudia, not really helpful."

"Ah, but you killed my fun. I wanted to see how long she could talk without stopping for air."

"2 minutes and 26 seconds is her best time," Abed said.

"Why don't we go have a seat somewhere?" Myka looked around the cafeteria again. "Maybe outside?"

"That works," Annie said. She breathed a couple times, regained her composure, and walked outside to a bench like a rational, mature adult. Then she turned to Myka and blurted, "Are we all going to die?"

Myka's smile would probably be better described as a grimace. "Just Claudia, when I kill her."

"Do that, and no one will ever know how to program the DVR again," Claudia warned. "You'll just have the same season of Storage Wars for the rest of eternity."

"Man, that show is intense," Troy said. "Did you see the one where they found a dead body?"

"Different show, Troy," Abed corrected him.

"Oh. Yeah, on second thought, that wasn't really a fun episode at all. That was actually pretty horrible."

Myka ignored that aside and turned her attention to Annie. She managed to sound reassuring without being condescending, and Annie remembered _why_ she'd kept up with that little pen pal project when no one else bothered, how nice it was to have someone tell her she was going to do fine and say it like it was a fact, not to be disputed.

"Listen, Annie, Claudia and I have been working in artifact retrieval for a long time now, we've collected, I don't even know how many," she looked at Claudia for verification. "Hundreds?"

"One a week, two if it's sweeps."

"A lot," Myka said. "A lot of artifacts. And we're still here. There are just some strange things in the world that can cause a little trouble if they go unattended, and we're here to make sure that doesn't happen. Okay?"

"Right, of course." Annie straightened up and smiled, a little self-deprecatingly. "Anything I can do to help?"

"You can tell me about your experience with the artifact."

"Okay, well, Monday night we were in the forest outside of town and supposedly there was a dinosaur."

"Oh come on, why would we lie about that?" Troy demanded.

"To be fair," Annie said. "I'm a little more open to the whole 'dinosaur in the woods' thing after today."

"And what was today?" Myka asked.

"A thing happened today and we missed it?" Troy asked, devastated.

Abed looked down, a little sadly. "I even brought my bullwhip today."

"Really, it wasn't that exciting," Annie assured them. "Claudia and I just stepped through a doorway, and instead of it leading to the hallway as it should have, it led into a 19th century mansion."

"Not an old one," Claudia said. "Brand new. Straight off the line."

"Straight off the 19th century line?"

"Basically," Annie shrugged.

"So the artifact made a dinosaur and a house appear out of nowhere?" Myka mused.

"I don't think so," Claudia answered. "It wasn't just a house and a dinosaur. The whole landscape changed. Either there was some very convincing illusion at work, or we actually traveled through time. Which would be _so fucking cool_."

"If it was an illusion, and we were just seeing it," Annie said slowly, thinking out loud, "People still would have seen _us_ , right? Because we were running around in that house and no one here seemed to notice."

"So, time travel," Myka said. "Brief, uncontrolled trips outside the timeline that bring you back where you started."

"And it didn't just happen to us," Annie said. "It sounds like Jeff and Pierce had something like that happen in their poker class."

"Maybe that was just a good set design," Claudia suggested.

"From _our_ theater program?" Annie scoffed. "Trust me, I saw _Midsummer Night's Dream_ here, time travel is way more likely."

"Hey," Troy protested. "I was in that play."

"And you were lovely in it," Annie assured him.

"I'm sure you're a regular Hasselhoff or Shatner," Claudia added.

"Thanks."

Abed shook his head. "Not thanks."

Troy frowned. "Wait, they aren't – "

Myka cleared her throat. "Let's stay on point here, shall we? There's a problem and it's not going to solve itself, and we need to find the artifact that's causing it. And _you_ need to stop encouraging them when they get like this," Myka pointed sternly at Claudia, who didn't look chastised in the least. "You're as bad as Pete sometimes."

"Aww, I like you too, Mykes."

"And whatever this thing is," Myka continued. "It started on Monday? Nothing weird happened before that?"

Abed raised an eyebrow. "Define 'weird'."

Troy mimicked the gesture. "Define 'happened'."

"There was that meteor," Annie said. "Last Monday. But that could have been a completely natural occurrence."

"Assume it wasn't," Myka said. "Now, there hasn't been anything reported like this in newspapers, police records, medical files – "

"Would there be?" Annie asked.

Claudia shrugged. "It'd probably get written off as a delusion or drug trip, but the story would show up somewhere."

"So every incident we know about has happened on this campus or to people who spend a lot of time here," Myka said. "It's possible the artifact is somewhere on campus, and either got here or was activated within the last week or two."

"So what's happened in the last two weeks here?" Claudia asked.

"Long answer or short answer?" Abed replied.

"Probably go with the abridged version, buddy," Troy said.

Abed thought for a moment. "Sundae Funday ice cream party, Clothes Drive for Homeless Poodles, blatant rip off of Antiques Roadshow – "

"That one," Myka said. "Expand on that."

"A bunch of people donated old things and we auctioned them off to raise money for a new basketball court," Annie explained. "They made about enough money to replace one of the backboards on the current court."

"Yeah, people brought in some really, really weird things," Troy laughed. "Like, what kind of really strange person would ever spend money on this stuff?"

"Well, who did?"

-

There was no answer when they knocked, so Myka opened the door and stepped into the office.

"Why, general," a terrible Southern accent drawled at them. "I do declare, you are a tease."

Against all of Annie's fervent wishes, the office chair spun around, revealing the Dean.

To his credit, he looked almost as horrified about this as the five of them felt.

"Is this a bad time, Dean Pelton?" Annie asked.

"No," he said, still in his falsetto. He coughed, and resumed in his usual voice. "No, now is fine, just drifted off in a daydream for – well, you don't care about – " he coughed again and started over. "How can I help you?"

Myka stepped forward, no more phased than if he had greeted them that way from the beginning. "I'm Agent Bering, with the Secret Service."

"Secret Service? Have we done something wrong?" The Dean laughed a little. "No, of course, you must be here for Annie's little – "

"Actually, sir, I'm here about an item you recently acquired."

His whole face fell. "A what now?"

"I understand," she said purposefully. "That you recently bought a clock at an auction."

"Oh!" The Dean sighed visibly in relief. Annie tried not to think about where that reaction had come from. "The clock, of course, what else would it be. Don't answer that. It's right over here." He stood from his desk and pulled a clock from the wall.

It was a pretty plain-looking thing; white face with twelve numbers. Annie couldn't really see what the big fuss was. Maybe they had the wrong artifact after all.

It did seem significant that it was a clock, though.

The Dean was still talking, Annie realized, and she hastily tuned in. " – waste of money, honestly, the darn thing doesn't even work. But the man who sold it to me told me it was _the_ clock, you know, the melting one. Said it used to belong to Salvador Dali. I know, I know," he continued, misconstruing the wide eyes and muffled exclamations that his visitors had upon hearing that. "Complete bull-poopy, but what's the fun in life if you're not going to get cheated at an auction buying a piece of whimsy from a suspicious man. With a very impressive mustache."

"Sir," Myka mercifully interrupted this over-informative stream of consciousness, pulling on purple latex gloves. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to confiscate this."

"Really?" the Dean looked disappointed.

"You said it doesn't even work, right, Dean?" Annie pointed out. "And your money did go to support the school."

"I suppose," the Dean sighed. "It's just a silly figment of my imagination. Just, ever since I bought that, I've been having the most vivid daydreams...You're sure you have to take it? It wasn't part of a," he looked around, as though someone could have snuck up behind him in his own office while they were blocking the doorway, then whispered, "drug smuggling operation?"

"I'm sure you understand that we can't talk about this," Myka said.

"Of course." The Dean nodded knowingly and tapped his nose.

"Thank you for your time, sir," Myka said.

As they left, Annie heard the Dean ask, "Wait, why do they get to hear about – " but the door swung shut and cut him off.

-

"Are you ready to goo?" Myka asked Claudia as she set the clock on a bench outside.

"Please," Claudia said cockily. "I was born ready to goo." Then she made a face. "That sounds really terrible. I apologize for that, to the world."

She pulled out an eyedropper full of purple gel. "Check out the new delivery system." She squeezed the bulb and three drops felt onto the clock.

Claudia and Myka instinctively flinched away from it. Rookies to the artifact-catching business, Troy, Annie, and Abed were a beat behind, jumping in shock as sparks flew up.

"What was that?" Troy yelped.

"That was proof that this little buddy is the guy that's been making things weird around here," Myka said, smiling with satisfaction. "We'll take it back with us and everything will be back to normal in no time."

"Awesome!" Annie jumped in excitement.

"Yeah, awesome." Troy sounded dejected. "You sure you can't just forget to pack that with your stuff? Because I do that all the time, you know, I only have like three socks left because of that, and that's three _individual_ socks, not pairs."

"Troy," Claudia sighed. "I know you want to time travel some more, because let's face it, who wouldn't, but you also almost got eaten by a dinosaur. Nothing is worth that."

"Yeah, I know," Troy sighed. "It's just – it could be _fun_. The time travel, not the getting eaten."

"Oh, _Troy_ ," Annie said. "You don't need time travel to have fun, you do that anyway."

"Dali's clock has nothing on us," Abed said.

"True story." Troy nodded, looking more upbeat.

Annie pulled him and Abed into a hug. Over her shoulders, Abed made eye contact with Claudia.

"Is this the part where you two ride off into the sunset?"

"You know, I think we have a day or two more in this mixed up town of yours," Claudia said. "I somehow promised this girl that I'd go to a career fair, I'd hate to back out and look like a jerk."

"The fair!" Annie gasped, breaking away from the group hug. "Oh my God, I still have so much left to do." Annie bustled off, crackling with energy, and calling to her roommates, who struggled to keep up. "Troy, I need you to find five hundred twist ties. Abed, you can make fake siren noises, right?"

"Did you even have to ask?"

Myka and Claudia watched, amused, as they disappeared from sight.

Claudia leaned into Myka. "How sure are we that there's not an artifact behind _that_?"

"Less than 40 percent. Maybe 30," Myka answered. "But honestly, if there is, I don't want to take it away from them.

-

**Wednesday (epilogue)**

"Here's the thing I still don't get," Abed said, sipping on his milk shake.

Claudia drank some of her own dessert as she nodded. "Okay, shoot."

"Myka's a government agent."

"Fact."

"And you work with her."

"Also a fact."

"But you're not a law-and-order type."

"Yeah," Troy said. "I was wondering about that a bit, too." Troy tried to take a sip of his milk shake, but couldn't get the straw in his mouth. "I mean, you're way too young to be the rogue cannon that the agency just keeps around because you get the job done."

"And that's an either/or scenario?" Claudia asked. "No third party candidate in this race? No Dr. Pepper on the menu?"

"Hm." Abed processed for a moment. "I got it. You're a master criminal; at your age, probably some kind of tech genius or super hacker. You were recruited to the side of justice, so now you use your skills to fight the good fight with whatever means are necessary."

"You know, he's pretty good at that," Claudia said to Troy, who nodded, and missed getting the straw in his mouth by five inches.

Myka and Annie walked in, Annie talking far too quickly. "And the whole thing's going to be ruined if we don't find some nail polish remover. Hey, have you guys seen – " She suddenly took in the scene around her. " _What_ are you doing."

She and Myka stared at Troy, Abed, and Claudia hanging upside-down off the edge of desks while drinking milkshakes like they'd never seen anyone do it before.

"Drinking milkshakes," Claudia answered, with an all-but-spoken "duh" hanging in the air.

"Doesn't the blood rush to your head?" Myka asked in morbid fascination.

Abed nodded. "Yeah, it's great, totally prevents brain freeze."

"There's no way that's a thing," Annie said, in faint bewilderment.

"You should try it," Claudia held her milkshake unsteadily out toward her. "It's awesome."

"Just, please, don't show Pete that," Myka begged.

Troy tried again to take a sip, and poked himself in the face with the straw. "Ow, that hurt!"

**Author's Note:**

>  **Prompt**  
>  Nothing Good Ever Happens After Midnight  
> Unexpected Connections  
> Myka/Annie (gen)  
> Claudia/Annie (gen)  
> also I repurposed a prompt about Claudia going undercover at a high school


End file.
